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Pirates, Privateers, and Mooncussers
By David Gallagher
Originally published in Inside Cape Cod, September 2004
"They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference: they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage."
-- Cape Cod Pirate "Black Sam" Bellamy
Cape Cod history is filled with accounts of her young men sailing off in whaling vessels, merchant ships, and fishing fleets. It was a hard life, to be sure, made harder by other sailing men: pirates. Like much of the world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Cape Cod saw her share of pirates. In fact, the only sunken pirate ship ever salvaged, the Whydah, was found right off of Wellfleet. But more about that unfortunate story later.
There is ample evidence of the activities of pirates in New England and around Cape Cod. The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630-1730, written by George Dow of the Society for the preservation of Antiquities, and Massachusetts State Archivist John Edmons in 1968 is an exhaustive look at pirates who hailed from, or sailed to, New England.
Pirates usually sailed south during winter months to the warm waters of the Caribbean and West Indies. As weather warmed, the pirates would sail north again -- always on the move. Often, pirates would trade with the locals for necessities such as water and food. Dow and Edmons note that “The islands off the mouth of Buzzards Bay were much frequented by pirates for fresh water and trade.”
Cape Cod also provided many of the favorite “hunting grounds” for pirates. “Vineyard Sound was used by coasting vessels bound for New York or Virginia,” write Down and Edmons, “and here pirates could lie in wait with the certainty of making some capture.” From the Cape, pirates would often sail for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
While undoubtedly brutal, pirates were not the lawless bands often depicted in film. In fact, most pirate ships were run as democracies, every man on board signing to a set of “Articles” (the Pirate Code - see sidebar) and agreeing to be ruled by a ships’ council. The men themselves made the decisions about who would be captain, as well as on matters of discipline, compensation, distribution of food, water and plunder.
Pirates, Privateers, and Mooncussers
There are many legends of pirates in Cape Cod. Captain Kidd himself is said to have buried treasure somewhere on the Cape. Others were either born here, died here, or terrorized Cape waters from Buzzards Bay to Provincetown. A few even managed to steal while on dry land.
Nantucket whalers and merchants in the 1700’s were often harried by privateers. Privateers were pirates with the legal authority from one country to plunder the ships of another country. Prior to the Revolutionary War, French and Spanish privateers harassed Nantucket ships that flew under the British flag. During the war, British privateers captured ships sailing under an American flag.
Even American privateers could be a problem for the islanders. Edwin Hoyt, in his book Nantucket, the Life of an Island, tells the story of an American privateer gone bad. On July 20, 1776, the Nantucket ship the Sherburne, was stopped returning to the island from the West Indies (which had been prohibited by the newly formed Continental Congress) by an American privateer named Captain Cragie who commanded the ship Congress.
Cragie didn’t seem to care much that the Sherburne was an American ship. He captured the vessel, took the valuables from the cargo, and even took the gold from the captain’s pockets. The Congress later sailed with her captives to the Bahamas, where they were set free, returning to Nantucket on another ship.
Elizabeth Reynard, in The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod, tells the tale of the dreaded pirate captain Ned Low. Described as a "maniac and a brute" by his own men, Ned Low was a Boston ship rigger who turned to piracy. Low was hiding with his ship the Fortune in Tarpaulin Cove after running from the English man-of-war the Greyhound. A few days later, about 80 miles off the Cape, Low cape upon a whaler with two boats out. Low killed the captain, but three crewmen managed to escape in a whaleboat to Nantucket. Low then boarded a whaling sloop out of Plymouth. When the sloop was later found adrift, there were signs of struggle, but no one left aboard.
Low’s reputation for extreme cruelty was apparently too much to take, even for pirates. His own crew finally set him adrift in an open boat without provisions. Two days later a French ship rescued him, but upon discovering who he was, the French gave him a short trial and hanged him.
Theft and villainy were not only traits of sea-born pirates. The so-called “mooncussers” made navigating the Cape’s waters an even more dangerous game. Legend states that these local scoundrels would deliberately wreck and plunder passing ships. During the darkest hours of the night, they would criss-cross the coast on horseback and plant large decoy lanterns at strategic points. After spotting a ship in distress, they grabbed the nearest decoy lantern and began waving it, beckoning the distressed sailors closer to the shore.
Once a ship was wrecked, the mooncussers would either help the crew reach safety off for a hot meal and rob them of their cargo, or -- in the more morbid tales -- simply do away with the crew and steal the cargo before more benevolent lifesavers arrived on the scene.
The Story of Black Bellamy
Perhaps the most famous Cape Cod pirate was Black Sam Bellamy. Not much is known about Bellamy’s life before becoming a pirate, except that he left his wife and children in England to try and earn his fortune in America. Instead, it is told, he found love. While in Cape Cod, Bellamy met a 15 year old girl Eastham girl named Maria Hallet. Apparently, the two fell in love, and Bellamy vowed to return with his fortune.
He first tried a legitimate form of business. With his partner Paulsgrave Williams, Bellamy tried his hand at salvaging sunken wrecks off the coast of Florida. The enterprise was a dismal failure, and rather than return empty handed, Bellamy and Williams decided to “go on the account,” or turn pirate. The two joined a pirate crew under Captain Benjamin Hornigold. Hornigold has the dubious honor of having mentored another infamous pirate: the feared Blackbeard.
In June 1716, a dispute arose about weather or not to attack English ships. Hornigold and other Englishmen refused to attack English vessels, while others in the crew wanted to make no such distinctions. The crew of Hornigold’s ship elected Bellamy as Captain and Williams as quartermaster and second in command. They set out to do what they had been unable in legitimate enterprise: to get rich.
Business was good. Traders and merchant ships were busy supplying colonial ports and returning to Europe with cargoes rich in resources, such as gold, silver, sugar, and other precious items. The group spent the next several months plundering ship after ship throughout the Caribbean.
In February 1717, Bellamy and Williams, each now in command of their own ship but working together, encountered the galley the Whydah, which was headed for London from Jamaica. The Whydah had a rich cargo -- ivory, gold, sugar, indigo, and Jesuits bark, having just finished a slaving voyage to the Guinea Coast. After a three-day chase, the pirates captured the Whydah, gave its captain and crew Bellamy’s old ship, and kept the Whydah -- and its treasure -- for themselves.
This latest success was apparently enough for Bellamy. With Williams, he sailed north towards New England, stopping to plunder the sloop of a Captain Beer of Newport off the coast of South Carolina. After they had taken what they could, Bellamy wanted to return Beers to his ship and set him free, but his crew had other ideas. They voted to sink the sloop.
When Beers complained, Bellamy is reported to have said, “I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a 200 sail of ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field.” They then continued north. Beers remained with Bellamy and was later set ashore on Block Island.
On the evening of April 26, 1717, the Whydah and the second ship foundered in a fierce storm and sank off the coast of Wellfleet. The ship, most of her crew, and priceless treasures looted from more than 50 ships were lost. It is not know if Bellamy was trying to return to Maria, or simply returning to familiar waters, but he went down with his ship. He was 29 years old.
Amazingly, two crew members of the Whydah survived -- a Welshman named Thomas Davis and John Julian, a Native American born on Cape Cod. Both were later arrested, but found to have been under Bellamy’s command unwillingly, were released. Six crew members of the second vessel managed to make land and survived. They too were arrested, found guilty, and hanged as pirates in Boston.
That would have been the end of the tale of Black Sam Bellamy, had it not been for a modern day adventurer named Barry Clifford. In 1984, Clifford found the long-lost wreck of the Whydah, exactly where it had lain for 267 years. Clifford and his crew located the site and have unearthed hundreds of artifacts -- and riches. He has also created a museum dedicated to the Whydah in Provincetown.
The Pirate Code of Conduct
The following is a charter drawn up by the crew of a pirate captain named Bartholomew Roberts:
- Every man shall have an equal vote in affairs of moment. He shall have an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized, and shall use them at pleasure unless a scarcity makes it necessary for the common good that a retrenchment may be voted.
- Every man shall be called fairly in turn by the list on board of prizes, because over and above their proper share, they are allowed a shift of clothes. But if they defraud the company to the value of even one dollar in plate, jewels or money, they shall be marooned. If any man robs another he shall have his nose and ears slit, and be put ashore where he shall be sure to encounter hardships.
- None shall game (gamble) for money, either with dice or cards.
- The lights and candles shall be put out at eight at night, and if any of the crew desire to drink after that hour they shall sit upon the open deck without lights.
- Each man shall keep his piece, cutlass and pistols at all times clean and ready for action.
- No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man shall be found seducing one of the latter and carrying her to sea in disguise, he shall suffer death.
- He that shall desert the ship or his quarters in time of battle shall be punished by death or marooning.
- None shall strike another aboard the ship, but every man's quarrel shall be ended on shore by sword or pistol in this manner: at the word of command from the Quartermaster, each man being previously placed back to back, shall turn and fire immediately. If any man does not, the Quartermaster shall knock the piece out of his hand. If both miss their aim, they shall take to their cutlasses, and he that draws first blood shall be declared the victor.
- No man shall talk of breaking up their way of living till each has a share of £1,000.
- Every man who shall become a cripple or lose a limb in the service shall have eight hundred pieces of eight from the common stock, and for lesser hurts proportionately.
- The Captain and the Quartermaster shall each receive two shares of a prize, the Master Gunner and Boatswain, one and one quarter, and private gentlemen of fortune one share each.
- The musicians shall have rest on the Sabbath Day only, by right, on all other days, by favor only.
The “Jolly Roger”
Nothing could strike fear into a captain and his crew as seeing the dreaded Jolly Roger. The black pirate flag was first used by English and American pirates in about 1700. Before this time, pirates attacked under their national banner. The flag took many forms. The best-known today is the skull and crossbones, but others showed such items as an hourglass, a bloody heart, and a full skeleton. Often, each pirate had a distinctive flag.
The symbols had clear meanings -- violence, death, and limited time. The Jolly Roger was meant to terrify the pirates’ prey into surrendering. If you surrendered while the black flag was raised, you would (supposedly) be shown mercy. If you chose to flee, the pirates might then raise the red flag, a sign that you and your crew would be given no quarter.
The name Jolly Roger is thought to come from the English work Rodger, which was a nickname for the devil. Other origins have been suggested, such as the French “joli rouge”, or “beautiful red,” for the red flags flown by French buccaneers. Another legend derives Jolly Roger from an Indian pirate names Ali Rajah, which English sailors pronounced “Olly Roger.”
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© David Gallagher 2005.
May not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without written permission of the author. For reprint inquiries, please contact the author. He won't bite.
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